The following is an A to Z archive of Famous Jews. Please click on any of the letters to browse through the archive alphabetically by last name,
or scroll down until you find the name of your choice. You can search by first name using browser. Edit -> Find.

I will put in my list only famous Jews that most people have never head or well-known Jews, but with some
interesting facts from their biography.

There are a variety of famous and successful Jews on this list,
from lawyers and politicians to military heroes and scientists.
While there may be a successful Jewish Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer
working today, this list mainly focuses on historical figures.

Morris "Moe" Berg (March 2, 1902, New York, New York – May 29, 1972, Belleville, New Jersey) was an American professional baseball player who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.

Koufax, Sandy (1935- ) is an American left-handed former pitcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, from 1955 to 1966. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.[wiki]

Famous Jews - Boxers - World Champions

Mendoza, Daniel (1764 - 1836) Famous British - Jewish prize fighter.

Born in Aldgate, London, Mendoza learned at a young
age to defend himself with his fists. In 1780 he won his first
professional fight. A natural middleweight, Mendoza became
the father of scientific boxing by devising defensive moves
that enabled him to fight against much heavier opponents.
His ring success brought him to the attention of the Prince of
Wales and he became the first boxer to receive royal patronage.
Mendoza’s ascendancy to boxing heights, and his acceptance
by royalty, helped ease the position of the Jew in the English
community. He proudly billed himself as “Mendoza the Jew.”
He opened his own boxing academy and became a teacher.
He went on tour and gave boxing exhibitions in England,
Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Mendoza lost the title of English
Champion to John Jackson on a ninth-round knockout on
April 15, 1795. He wrote The Art of Boxing (London, 1789) and
The Memoirs of the Life of Daniel Mendoza (London, 1816). In
1954 Mendoza was one of the inaugural group chosen for the
Boxing Hall of Fame in the United States.
Bibliography: H.D. Miles, Pugilistica, 1 (1880); H.U. Ribalow,
Fighter from Whitechapel (1962).

Harmon, Willie (HERMAN ELSMAN) born April 20, 1899 best records from 1920 to 1924

Baer, Max (1909 -1959) champion 1933 - 1935. Fight in Germany and Italy with a Star of David on his shorts.

Bass, Benny (1904 -1975) World Featherweight Champion 1927-1928,

Berg ,Jack (Kid)(1909 - 1991)(Judah Bergmann) one of Britain's most successful lightweight world champion boxers. He took the world title in 1930 and defended it nine times.

Choyinski, Joe (1868-1943). (1888-1904)

Field, Jackie (Jacob Finkelstain 1908 -84) In 1924 he won the gold medal at the Paris Olympic Games for boxing in the featherweight division. In 1929 and 1932 became world champion in the featherweight division.

Kaplan Louis, 'Kid' (1901 -70) featherweight champion 1925 -27.

Leonard, Benny ( Benjamin Leiner 1896 - 1947) From 1917 till 1925 he was world champion in the lightwerweight.

Levinsky Barney 'Battling' (Barney Lebrowitz 1891 -1949) In 1916 Levinsky took the undisputed world light heavyweight title from Jack Dillon and defended it a record 59 times.

Lewis Ted 'Kid' (Gershon Medeloff 1894 - 1970) 1914 - 1917 he was world welterweight champion. He was British Empire champion between 1914 and 1924. He was the first boxer to use a mouthpiece to protect his teeth.

McCoy, Al (Al Rudolph 1894 - 1966)He was middleweight champion of the world between 1914 and 1917 and the first a left handed boxer ever to win a world title.

Olin, Bob (1908 1956) (light-heavyweight 1934-1935)

Perez, Victor (1911- 1943) In 1931 won the French flyweight title in Paris and in October he won the world flyweight title by defeating Frankie Genaro of the US. Was killed in Auschwitz in February 1943 .

Rosenbloom Maxie (Rosenblum, Slapsie maxie 1904 - 76) won the world light heavyweight title in 1930 and was champion for 4 years.

Ross, Barney (1907 -1967) In 1933 Ross became the first boxer to hold the lightweight and welterweight world titles.

Robert Cohen (born November 15, 1930, in Bone, Algeria) was an Algerian-French Jewish boxer. Cohen was world bantamweight champion from 1954 to 1956.

Chagall, Marc (1887-1985) was born in Liozno, Vitepsk, Russia. Was stadiing in heder.

Cremieux, Adolphe layer and statement, who abolished slavery in
French colonies, enfranchised Algerian Jews, and went to the middle east
during the notorious â€śDamascus Affairâ€ť to save Jewish prisoners in
Damascus from gallows, and the community from mob violence, following
the anti-Semitic blood libel of 1840. [Story of my Life by Moshe Dayan]

Cohn, Ferdinand (1828-1898) The father of modern bacteriology, was born in Jewish ghetto in Breslau.

Famous Jews chess champions:

First chess manual and even poem about chess 'The Song of Chess' was written by famous Jewish philosopher Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra (1092 –1167)

Dubnov Simon was born in White Russia in 1860. Among his
ancestors were many distinguished rabbis. He devoted his entire
life to the study of Jewish history; his historical method marked a
turning point in Jewish historiography. He engaged in his studies
and prolific writings in St. Petersburg and Odessa until the Com-
munist revolution, whereupon he moved to Germany. With the
advent of Hitler he moved to Riga in Latvia where he lived until
1941. Then, at the age of 81, he was murdered by the Nazis as they
herded a group of Jews from the ghetto.

In 1921, Albert Einstein presented a paper on his then-infant Theory of Relativity at the Sorbonne, the prestigious French university.
"If I am proved correct," he said, "the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist.
If relativity is proved wrong, the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew.

Edelman, Marek (1922-2009)was a Polish political and social activist. During World War II he was one of the founders of the Jewish Combat Organization. He took part in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and became its' leader following the death of Mordechaj Anielewicz.[WIKI]

FRIDMAN, GAL (1975 -), Israeli windsurfer; first Israeli
ever to win an Olympic gold medal and the first Israeli to win
two Olympic medals. Born in the Israeli moshav of Karkur,
near Haderah, Fridman – whose first name, Gal, means “wave”
in Hebrew – began windsurfing when he was six years old
and competing at age 11, under the coaching of his father.

GOLDSMID, Albert Edward Williamson 1846–1904. English soldier and
Zionist. Born in Poona, India, into an assimilated Anglo-Jewish family,
Goldsmid became a regular soldier and served as a staff colonel in the Boer War
(1899– 1902). He reasserted his Jewish identity in adult life, becoming a keen
Zionist. In 1892 he took a year’s absence from the army to spend with the Jewish
colonists in the Argentine. He was an enthusiastic supporter of HERZL, and in
1898 helped to found the English Zionist Federation. Goldsmid was a member of
the El-Arish Commission in 1903, to explore the possibility of Jewish settlement
in Sinai. The hero of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda is said to have been based
on Goldsmid. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]

Goldwyn, Samuel (Shmuel Gelbfisz 1882 -1974) US film pioneer

Maria Kondratyevna Gorokhovskaya (1921 in Eupatoria - 2001 in Tel Aviv)
was a Ukrainian - Jewish (formerly Soviet) gymnast. Gorokhovskaya won her first U.S.S.R.
gymnastic title on the balance beam in 1948.
At the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, she won seven medals, the most medals
won by any woman in a single Olympics and were the first ever won by the
Soviet Union.

Greenstein, Joseph L. (1893-October 8, 1977), better known as "The Mighty Atom", was a 20th century strongman.

The best known Jewish Gangsters in the 1920s and 1930s - Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Longy Zwillman, Moe Dalitz, David Berman.

HART, Aaron 1724–1800. English settler in Canada. Aaron Hart emigrated
to New York from London in about 1752, and in 1760 served with the British
troops as a commissary officer. He settled in Three Rivers, north-west of
Montreal, where he acquired property and developed commercial interests. He
played a leading role in the public life of the region, becoming postmaster of the
second post office in British Canada, and raising a local militia to protect British
interests against the French. His commercial initiatives helped Three Rivers
develop into an important trading and commercial centre, and for more than a
century his descendants remained associated with the town. On his death he was
reputed to be the wealthiest man in British Canada. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]

Heine, Heinrich (1797-1856) poet

Heifetz, Jasha (1901-87) violinist

HOS, Dov 1894–1940. Labour Zionist leader. Hos was brought to Palestine
from Byelorussia in 1906, at the age of twelve, and graduated from the Herzliah
Gymnazia. At the outbreak of World War I he joined the Turkish army and
reached officer rank. For helping in the defence of Jewish settlements he was
court-martialled and condemned to death, in absentia, but eluded capture and
joined the Jewish Legion. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]

Adolphe Cremieux, (April 30, 1796 - February 10, 1880) French layer and statement, who abolished slavery in French
colonies and save Jewish prisoners in Damascus 1840

Charles Netter,(1828 -1882) who in 1870 founded and directed the first Jewish agricultural
school in Palestine at Mikveh Israel.

Baron Edmond de Rothschild , who invested in Jewish farm settlement in Palestine at the end of the nineteen and
beginning of the twentieth century.

The three Palestinian Jews, Hungarian-born Joshua Stampfer and David Meir Gutman,
and Jerusalem-born Joel Moses Solomon, who in 1878 founded Petach Tickvah,
the first Jewish farm village in the country in recent times.

Joseph Trumpeldor (November 21, 1880 – March 1, 1920), was born in Pyatigorsk, Russia
Trumpeldor died defending the settlement of Tel Hai in 1920 and subsequently became a Zionist national hero.
His last words were famously "Never mind, it is good to die for our country."

Kafka, Franz (1883-1924) Famous German-speaking Jewish writer was born in Prague, now in the Czech Republic

KISCH, Frederick Herman 1888–1943. British soldier and Zionist. Kisch
was born in India, the son of a British official, and became a professional soldier
in the Royal Engineers. During World War I he served mainly in Mesopotamia,
and worked in military intelligence in London while convalescing from wounds.
After the war he was a military adviser with the British delegation to the Paris
Peace Conference. He was killed by a landmine near Tunis, in April 1943. A moshav in Galilee named Kfar Kisch. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]

Lamarr Hedy [Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler](November 9, 1913 – January 19, 2000) - Jewish -American actress
who co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency
hopping, necessary to wireless communication from the pre-computer age to the present day.
They submitted the idea of a secret communication system in June 1941. On August 11, 1942,
US Patent 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and "Hedy Kiesler Markey", Lamarr's married name at the time.

LEVI-BIANCHINI, Angelo 1887– 1920. Italian naval officer and Zionist. A
naval commander with a distinguished war record and experience in diplomatic
assignments, Levi-Bianchini became an enthusiastic Zionist. He worked with Dr
WEIZMANN on the Zionist Commission in Palestine in 1918, and at the San
Remo Conference in 1920. In that year he was killed by Bedouin tribesmen in
Transjordan, while on a mission to Damascus for the Italian government.
[Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]

Libetkin Zivia (1914 - 76) She was one of the leaders of the Jewish fighting when the Warsaw ghetto rose up on April 19, 1943.
She escaped the getto via the sewagw systemand fought with the partisans.

Famous Jews in Literature

Jewish Laureates of Nobel Prize in Literature (Year Nobel Laureate and Country of birth )

Marcel Marceau (22 March 1923 – 22 September 2007) was an internationally acclaimed French actor and mime. He was a member of the French Resistance in Limoges during the German occupation.

Michel Montaigne. His mother, Antoinette de Louppes, was of an Iberian Jewish family.
[See p 76 'The World we Want' by Mark Kingwell]

MONASH, Sir John 1865–1931. Australian engineer and soldier. Monash
was a successful civil engineer in Victoria. In World War I he first became
prominent as a brigade commander in the unsuccessful Gallipoli campaign of
1915. After that he served in France and rose rapidly until in 1918, as a lieutenant general,
he led the entire ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand) Corps in the
final offensive that broke the German lines. As a lieutenant-general, he was the
highest ranking Jew in any modern army.
Monash was president of the Australian Zionist Federation (1928). The
settlement of Kfar Monash in Israel was named after him. Was knighten by King George V. In 1950 an equestrian statue was erected in Melbourne.[Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]

Mendelssohn, Moses (1729-1786) philosopher

Mikhoels, Solomon (1890 - January 12/13, 1948) was a Soviet Jewish actor and the artistic
director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during the Second World War. In 1948, Mikhoels was murdered
on the orders of Stalin. [From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.]
see photo Solomon Mikhoels

Napoleon Bonaparte and Jews In 1806 Napoleon convened the Assembly of Jewish Notables, which redefined traditional Judaism and transformed the Jews into French citizens. Napoleon thus questioned the Jews' loyalty to France on doctrinal issues rather than simply accepting their economic loyalty, as the revolutionaries had done. The assembly led to two laws enacted on May 30, 1806, and March 17, 1808, which proclaimed this loyalty but also deprived northeastern Jews of their economic freedom.

Netter,Charles who in 1870 founded and directed the first
Jewish agricultural school in Palestine at Mikveh Israel.[Story of my Life by Moshe Dayan.]

Nirenberg, Marshall Warren (April 10, 1927 – January 15, 2010) was an American biochemist and geneticist. He shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968

NONES, Benjamin 1757–1826. US soldier. Nones was born in Bordeaux,
France, and came to the United States during the revolutionary period. He served
as an aide to General Washington, with the rank of major, and was cited for
bravery in battle. After independence, he settled in Philadelphia and became a
leader of the local Jewish community. He supported the abolitionist movement
and voluntarily freed his own slaves. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]

OBERMANN, JULIAN JOËL (1888–1956), Orientalist. Born
in Warsaw, Obermann taught Semitic languages at the University
of Hamburg from 1919 to 1922, achieving recognition with
the publication of his work on the philosophy of Al-Ghazali
in 1921. He subsequently became professor of Semitic philology
at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, where he
taught from 1923 to 1931.

OCHS, SIEGFRIED (1858–1929), conductor and composer.
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Ochs founded the Berlin Philharmonic
Choir in 1882.

OFFENBACH, ISAAC (1779–1850). Isaac ben Judah,
surnamed Eberst, was born in Offenbach near Frankfurt.
After he left his native town in 1799 to become a wandering
hazzan and musician, he began to be called, "der Offenbacher,"
which soon became his official family name. In 1802
he settled in Deutz as a tavern musician, and in 1816 moved
to Cologne, where he became a music teacher.
The seventh of his nine children, Jacob, was the composer
Jacques Offenbach.

OFFENBACH, JACQUES (1819–1880), French composer of
comic operas and operettas.

OHEV BEN MEIR HANASI (late 11th–early 12th century),
liturgical poet in Spain. Abraham Ibn Daud mentions him
in his Sefer ha-Kabbalah together
with the poet Moses Ibn Ezra, and refers to him by
his Arabic name Ibn Shortmeqas.

OISTRAKH, DAVID FEDOROVICH (1908–1974), Jewish - Russian
violin virtuoso. Born in Odessa, Oistrakh studied the violin
from the age of five with Stoljarsky, made his first public
appearance in 1914.

OPPENHEIMER, J. ROBERT (1904–1967), U.S. physicist.
Oppenheimer was in charge of the construction of the first
atomic bomb as director of the laboratories at Los Alamos,
New Mexico. Born in New York City, Oppenheimer was the
son of a cultured and successful businessman, who had immigrated
to the U.S. from Germany.

ORNSTEIN, ABRAHAM FREDERICK (1836–1895), London-
born pioneer minister in Australia and South Africa. (His
surname is sometimes spelled "Ornstien.") After serving the
Melbourne Hebrew congregation (1866–75) and being principal
of Aria College for training Jewish ministers in Portsmouth,
England, Ornstein went to Cape Town in 1882 and
headed the congregation there for 13 years.

OSIRIS, DANIEL ILLFA (1825–1908), French philanthropist
and art patron, member of a Sephardi family of Bordeaux. He
gave large sums for the promotion of technology (radio, telegraphy)
and medicine (Institut Pasteur) and bequeathed his
valuable art collection to the Louvre. He bought La Malmaison
and part of the field of Waterloo and gave them to the French
nation.

OTTOLENGHI, GIUSEPPE (1838–1904), Italian general and
minister of war. Born in Sabbioneta, Lombardy, Ottolenghi
studied at the Turin military academy and fought with the
Italian army in the war against Austria in 1859.Ottolenghi
was the recipient of many honors, including
the silver medal for military valor and the Cross of Savoy.

Abraham ibn (ben) Daud 1110-1180 is the first Jewish philosopher who shows an intimate knowledge of the works of
Aristotle and makes a deliberate effort to harmonize the Aristotelian system with Judaism.

Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides 1135-1204). Was born in Cordova, Spain, in 1135. He was the most comprehensive
mind (scholar, philosopher and physician) of mediaeval Jewry, and his philosophy was the copingstone of a complete system
of Judaism.

Hillel ben Samuel 1220-1295 an Italian Jew was strong admirer of Maimonides and undertook to comment on the
Guide of the Perplexed, he also translated from Latin. His main work is Tagmule ha-Nefesh ( The rewards of the Soul )

Levi ben Gershon ( Gersonides ) 1288 1344 He was a great mathematician and astronomer and wrote philosophical
masterpiece Milhamot Adonai (The Wars of the Lord).

Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Jew, who invested prodigious effort and means
to establish and develop Jewish farm settlement in Palestine at the
end of the nineteen and beginning of the twentieth century. [Story of my Life by Moshe Dayan]

Ricardo, David (1772-1823) Founded classical school of economics in England and a member of Parliament. Sephardic Jew. The author of 'The principles of political economy and taxation'

SERENI, Enzo Chaim 1905–1944. War hero. Sereni was born into an old
Roman Jewish family and became an enthusiastic Zionist, settling in Palestine in
1927, as one of the founders of Givat Brenner, a kibbutz in the southern coastal
plain. In World War II he was the leader of a group of Palestinian Jews who
volunteered to be dropped by parachute behind German lines in Europe, to carry
out sabotage and rescue operations. Sereni was mistakenly dropped directly onto
the German lines in Italy, was captured, deported and shot in Dachau. In 1951
his book on The Sources of Italian Fascism (written in Hebrew) was published.
The kibbutz of Netzer Sereni was named after him. His widow, Ada, became
active in organizing illegal immigration through Italy. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]

Spielberg, Steven

de Spinoza, Baruch (1632 -1677)a Jewish - Iberian - Dutch philosopher. He was first initiated into philosophy, by study of Jewish philosophical texts.

Strauss, Levi Invented fashion - world "jeans"

Steinitz, Wilhelm (1835 - 1900) The first Jewish chess champion.

Spitz, Mark, In 1972 Olympic games he received 7 gold medals in swimming.

URI (Phoebus) BEN AARON HALEVI (also called Uri
Witzenhausen or Witmund; 1625–1715), Hebrew printer. Uri’s
father was hazzan of the Neveh Shalom congregation, Amsterdam,
and his grandfather Moses Uri ha-Levi, rabbi of Emden
and one of the founders of the Portuguese Jewish community
in Amsterdam. Uri established his first press in Amsterdam in
1658 and was active there until 1689

URY, ELSE (1877–1943), bestselling German author. Born
in Berlin into a upper-middle-class Jewish family, Ury first
received recognition for her story “Studierte Maedel” (“Academic
Girls,” 1906), which touched on a controversial topic,
as women gained access to universities in Prussia only in
1908. Later she became famous for her children’s book series
Nesthaekchen (1918–1925) in ten volumes; she wrote a total
of 39 books.
Else Ury was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau in January
1943.

USSISHKIN, ABRAHAM MENAH EM MENDEL (1863–
1941), Zionist leader, member of H? ovevei Zion, and the president
of the *Jewish National Fund (JNF). Born in Dubrovno
in the district of Mogilev, Russia, Ussishkin moved to Moscow
with his family in 1871.

UTITZ, EMIL (1883–1956), philosopher. Born in Prague,
Utitz was professor at Halle and Prague. From 1942 to 1945
he was interned in the German concentration camp at Theresienstadt.

UTKIN, JOSEPH PAVLOVICH (1903–1944), Soviet Russian
poet. Born in Manchuria, Utkin was the son of an employee of
the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railroad and was raised
in Irkutsk, far from the main centers of Jewish life. Nevertheless,
he succeeded in learning enough about Jewish customs
and traditions, and acquired a sufficient knowledge of Yiddish,
to produce the most important long Russian poem on a Jewish
theme yet to appear in Soviet literature.

VAJS, ALBERT (1905–1964), leader of Yugoslav Jewry. Born
in Zemun (Semlin), Vajs grew up in a mixed Serbo-Croat,
German, and Hungarian cultural milieu, but from his youth he
was a Zionist and was greatly influenced by Alexander Licht
and the Zemun rabbi H. Urbach. Until 1941 he was a barrister
in Belgrade. During World War II he was a Yugoslav officer
and was captured by the Germans. After the war he was a
member of the State War Crimes Commission in Yugoslavia
and the deputy head of the Yugoslav delegation to the International
Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.

VANDOR, LAJOS (1913–1945), Hungarian poet. His wry and
sophisticated verses were published in the 1930s and again in
1989 in a volume titled Egy költö élt itt köztetek ("A Poet Lived
Here Amongst You"). Vándor was a victim of the Holocaust.

VÁZSONYI, VILMOS (1868–1926), Hungarian lawyer and
politician who was the first Jew in Hungary to become minister
of justice.

VENEZIANI, EMMANUEL FELIX (1825–1889), French
philanthropist, born in Leghorn (Italy). He became a director
of the relief fund of Baron de Hirsch and in 1877 traveled to
the Balkans and Bulgaria where he organized relief for Jewish
and gentile victims of the Russo-Turkish war. At the Congress
of Berlin in 1878, Veneziani and Charles Netter worked for
religious liberty in the former Ottoman territories, and in 1880
he was similarly active at the Congress of Madrid on behalf of
Moroccan Jewry. In 1882 he and Netter were sent by the Alliance
Israélite Universelle to help organize Jewish emigration
from Russia. In 1883 Veneziani toured the Jewish settlements
in Palestine. In conformity with Hirsch’s views, he advised
limiting Russian Jewish immigration there.

VENTURA, Rubino 1792–1858.

Italian soldier of fortune. After serving as a
young soldier in Napoleon’s army, Ventura found his way to Persia where he
instructed the shah’s forces, with the rank of colonel. He then took service with
the maharaja of Lahore, organized and led the local army, and married an Indian
princess. He died in Paris, after having lost the wealth he had accumulated in
India. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]

VERTOV, DZIGA (originally Denis Kaufman; 1897–1954),
Russian pioneer in newsreel-documentary movie director and
founder of the “cine-eye, cine-ear” theory. He edited (early
1920s) the newsreel kino-pravda from film taken by cameramen
he dispatched throughout the U.S.S.R. After 1924 Vertov
headed his own group of movie theorists and filmmakers; his
brother and chief cameramen MIKHAIL KAUFMAN went with
him. Among his documentaries are One Sixth of the World
(1927), Three Songs of Lenin (1932), and Lullaby (1937).

VISHNIAC, ROMAN (1897–1990), photographer. Born in
St. Petersburg, Vishniac studied biology at Russian universities.
When Berlin University under the Nazis refused to grant
his Ph.D. in art, he left Germany and traveled throughout Poland,
Austria, Holland, France, Romania, and Czechoslovakia,
documenting with his camera the lives of the Jews in the cities
and in the hinterlands. He was in Poland taking photographs
of the Jewish community when Hitler’s troops marched in.
Vishniac was apprehended and sent to a concentration camp
in Zbaszyn, Poland. He escaped to France but within a short
time he was again incarcerated in another concentration camp,
Camp du Richard in Clichy, France. Early in 1941 he managed
to escape from Europe and went to the United States.
His books include Polish Jews (1947) and Life of the
Six Millions (1969) illustrating European Jewish life before and
during the Holocaust.

VISSER, LODEWIJK ERNST (1871–1942), Dutch jurist
and communal leader. He was born in Amersfoort into an
old Dutch Jewish family. Prevented as a Jew from achieving
his ambition of becoming a diplomat, Visser was appointed
general prosecutor in Amsterdam and in 1903 became a district
court judge in Rotterdam.During World War II, Visser opposed
the German-appointed
"Joodse Raad" (Jewish Council) and refused to accept the degrading
identity cards. He tried to intervene for Jews arrested
by Germans and participated in general resistance activities,
becoming a symbol of Jewish wartime resistance in Holland.
His wife and son died in concentration camps. In 1968
a square in front of the Sephardi synagogue in Amsterdam
was named after him.

VITAL, HAYYIM BEN JOSEPH (1542–1620), one of the
greatest kabbalists. Vital was born in Erez Israel, apparently
in Safed. His father, Joseph Vital Calabrese, whose name indicates
his origin from Calabria, South Italy, was a well-known
scribe in Safed.

VOS, ISIDOR H.J. (1887–1942), Dutch physician and liberal
politician. Vos was head of the hygiene department of the
Netherlands army headquarters (1914–18), and later an Amsterdam
councilor and alderman. From 1928 to 1940 he was
a member of the second chamber of the Dutch parliament.
Given the opportunity to leave Holland after the German invasion
in World War II, he sent his family away but he stayed,
and died in a concentration camp.

'He represented the morality of humanity; he represented
the free world, the democratic world. He devoted his life
to fighting racism, anti-Semitism, Nazism and he really
contributed to making a better world for the next
generation.'- Israeli President Moshe Katsav

Wiesenthal is often asked to explain his motives for
becoming a Nazi hunter. According to Clyde Farnsworth in
the New York Times Magazine (February 2, 1964), Wiesenthal
once spent the Sabbath at the home of a former Mauthausen
inmate, now a well-to-do jewelry manufacturer. After
dinner his host said, 'Simon, if you had gone back to
building houses, you'd be a millionaire. Why didn't you?"
'You're a religious man,' replied Wiesenthal. 'You believe
in God and life after death. I also believe. When we come
to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died
in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?', there
will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler',
Another will say, I have smuggled coffee and American
cigarettes', Another will say, 'I built houses', But I
will say, 'I didn't forget you'.'

Waksman, Selman (1888-1973) Winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine. Worked in the field of antibiotics. Was born near Kiev and had praditional Jewish education.

WEISS, YAACOV (1924–1947), Jew executed by the British
in Palestine. Weiss was born in Nove Zamky, Czechoslovakia,
and joined the local Betar as a boy of ten. In 1945 he was apprehended
in attempting to enter Erez Israel "illegally" and
was imprisoned in Athlit. On his release he joined the IzL and
took part in many of its operations, the last being the break
into Acre prison when, with Avshalom Haviv and Meir Nakar,
he was captured, sentenced to death, and hanged.

WEIZMANN,Jewish - Russian family, one of whose members, Chaim
Weizmann, became the first president of the State of Israel.
There were 15 children in the family. OZER (1850–1911), the
head of the family, was a timber transporter and the only Jew
appointed starosta (head of the village) in Motol. In about 1894
he moved to Pinsk and succeeded in business there. He was
a maskil, versed in Judaism, and an early Zionist, as well as
representative to the Sixth Zionist Congress (1903).

WEIZMAN, EZER (1924–2005), Israeli air force commander,
politician, and seventh president of Israel, member of the
Ninth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Knessets.

WELSH, ARTHUR L. (Al; 1881–1912), pioneer U.S. aviator.
Welsh, who was born near Kiev, Russia, was taken to the
United States in 1890. In 1905 he joined the U.S. Navy, serving
for four years. His interest in flying led him to join Orville
Wright’s flying class in 1910, and after several months, when he
had learned to fly solo, he joined the Wright Brothers Aviation
School in Dayton, Ohio, as an instructor. He tutored many important
U.S. aviators, including General Henry H. Arnold, U.S.
Army Air Force Chief of Staff during World War II. Welsh established
many flying records and won a number of trophies,
including the George Campbell Cup for altitude at Belmont
Park in 1911.

WEST, MAE (1893–1980), U.S. actress, writer, and singer.
Born Mary Jane West in Brooklyn, New York, to John P. West
and Matilda Delker-Dolger, a German Jewish model and
dressmaker, at seven West was winning talent shows.

WIENER, NORBERT (1894–1964), U.S. mathematician;
inventor of the science of cybernetics. Born in Columbia,
Missouri, Wiener was a child prodigy. He was the son of Leo
*Wiener, historian of Yiddish language, literature, and folklore
and professor of Slavic languages, who made incessant
intellectual demands on his son (and who did not reveal their
Jewishness – a fact discovered by Norbert Wiener only when
he was in his teens). Wiener began to read scientific books
at four, and by seven was familiar with the theories of natural
scientists.

WIGNER, EUGENE PAUL (1902–1995), Nobel laureate in
physics. Wigner was born in Budapest and was one of a small
number of extraordinarily talented Hungarian-born physicists
who contributed to the transformation of Newtonian
physics. Wigner obtained his doctorate from the Technische
Hochschule (later Universitaet) in Berlin in 1925, where his
contacts with physicists of equal standing were established at
colloquia of the German Physical Society.

WILLSTAETTER, RICHARD (1872–1942), German organic
chemist and Nobel laureate. Willstaetter, who was born
in Karlsruhe, became professor at Munich in 1902, and three
years later professor at the Technische Hochschule in Zurich.
In March 1939 the Gestapo ransacked his house and
ordered him to leave Germany. He went to Locarno, Switzerland,
where he died.

WING ATE, Charles Orde 1903–44. British soldier and Zionist. Wingate
was a brilliant and unorthodox soldier. The men he led always worshipped him
and would follow him anywhere. His superior officers tended to dismiss him as
insubordinate and unbalanced. To the Palestine Jews he was a friend and a
legend, sometimes called ‘the Lawrence of Judea’, after his distant kinsman
T.E.LAWRENCE, whom he resembled in some ways. Wingate was born in
India of non-conformist missionary parents, and had an intense attachment to the
Bible, a copy of which he always carried with him.
In 1936 he was posted to Palestine as a captain, at the beginning of the Arab
rebellion. He spent time in the kibbutzim, and gained the confidence of the
Jewish Agency leaders. He obtained permission from the British army to train
groups of selected Haganah men for the protection of the oil pipeline from
Kirkuk, Iraq, to Haifa, that was constantly being sabotaged by Arab raiders. The
groups became known as Wingate’s Night Squads and included such future Israel
commanders as Yigal ALLON and Moshe DAYAN. Wingate taught them the
elements of speed, surprise, subterfuge and night attack that were to have a
lasting effect on the outlook and methods of the Haganah and later the Israel
army.
In 1939, he was transferred back to England because he was identified with
the Zionist struggle and openly critical of the authorities. During World War II,
he played a notable part in the Ethiopian campaign and entered liberated Addis
Ababa at the side of Haile Selassie. In 1944 he organized and commanded the
famous Chindit irregulars that operated in the Burmese jungle behind the
Japanese lines, and was given the rank of major-general. He was killed in a plane
crash. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974

WISSOTZKY, KALONYMUS ZE'EV (1824–1904),Jewish merchant,
philanthropist, and supporter of Hibbat Zion. Born in
Zhagare (Kovno province), Wissotzky attended yeshivot and
then tried his hand at agriculture. Having failed, he became
a businessman and, in 1858, he moved to Moscow, where he
established the famous tea firm that bears his name (Ah ad
Ha-Am was at one time manager of its London branch). He
became a wealthy man and took an interest in public affairs,
especially by subsidizing charitable institutions and causes.
Wissotzky was one of the earliest adherents and supporters
of the Hibbat Zion movement in Russia.

XIMENES, SIR DAVID (1776–1848), English army officer.
Born in London, into a distinguished Jewish family, Ximenes
joined the British army and served in North America. He returned
to Britain in 1805 and commanded the 62nd Regiment
in Ireland. He later fought in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Ximenes
was knighted in 1832 and retired with the rank of lieutenant
general in 1847. He had no direct connection with the
Jewish community.

YA'ISH, BARUCH BEN ISAAC IBN (15th century), philosopher
and translator. Probably born in Spain, Ibn Ya'ish
lived and died in Italy. He had a good knowledge of Hebrew,
Latin, and Arabic. Ibn Ya'ish wrote a Hebrew commentary
in ten chapters on Avicenna's De Medicamentibus Cordialibus
(On Cardiac Remedies) entitled Be'ur la-Sammim ha-
Libbiy yim, in which he quotes Aristotle and Averroes (Bodl,
Ms. Mich., Add. 16).
He translated Aristotles Metaphysics into Hebrew from
the Latin.

YAKIR, YONAH (d. 1937), Soviet general. Born in Kishinev,
Yakir commanded the 45t? division of the Red Army during
the Civil War and was later promoted to general with command
of the Kiev district. He was one of the founders of the
Red Army armored corps and in 1937 was made military commander
of the Ukraine and a member of the Supreme Military
Council. Shortly afterward Yakir was arrested on charges of
spying and executed. He was posthumously rehabilitated in
1945 and a postage stamp was issued in 1954 in his memory.

ZACUTO, ABRAHAM BEN SAMUEL (1452–c. 1515), astronomer
and historian. His ancestors were French Jewish
exiles who had come to Castile in 1306.

ZADIKOW, ARNOLD (1884–1943), German sculptor and
medalist, killed by the Nazis.

ZAM, ZVI HERZ (1835–1915), Russian - Jewish soldier; the only
Jewish officer in the czarist army in the 19th century. Born in
Goren grod, Zam was taken from his home when he was 12
and trained at the *Cantonist military institute at Tomsk. He
was posted to an infantry regiment, and, following the introduction
of national conscription in 1874, was permitted to enter
the cadets’ school. He rose to become vice captain (shtabskapitan)
but was placed in command of the worst company in
his regiment at the orders of the war minister, who expressed
surprise that a Jew who had remained faithful to his religion
should serve as an officer. Within a year Zam had made his
company the best in the regiment, but not until 1893, just before
his retirement after 41 years in the czarist army, was he
promoted to full captain. Zam took an active part in Jewish
affairs and was instrumental in providing synagogue facilities
for Jewish soldiers.

ZASLOFSKY, MAX ("Slats"; 1925–1985), U.S. basketball
player and coach, member of the NBA's Silver Anniversary
Top 25 Team. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Zaslofsky was
an all-scholastic player at Thomas Jefferson High School.
Zaslofsky was named First Team All-NBA each of his
four years with Chicago.

ZEID, ALEXANDER (1886–1938), pioneer of the Second Jewish
Aliyah and one of the founders of the Ha-Shomer defense
organization. Born in Balagansk, Siberia, at the age of 13 Zeid
settled in Vilna, where he joined the Zionist labor movement.
In 1904 he was one of the first pioneers of the Second Aliyah
to reach Erez Israel.

ZEMACH, NAHUM (1887–1939), theatrical director, founder
of Habimah. Born in Volkovysk, he grew up in Poland and
was a successful businessman in Moscow before devoting
himself to literature and the theater. In 1912 in Bialystok (with
Menahem Gnessin), he assembled a group of Hebrew-speaking
actors who performed Dymov's The Eternal Wanderer,
and in the following year he presented the play in Vienna to
the members of the 11t? Zionist Congress.

ZIEGFELD, FLORENZ (1869–1932), U.S. showman. Ziegfeld,
born in Chicago, started his career at the Chicago World
Fair, 1893, and staged his first production in 1896 in New York.
His star was Anna Held, whom he had brought from Europe
and later married, and he publicized the show with front-page
advertising, a device which subsequently became his hallmark.
In 1907, after a visit to Paris, he launched the Ziegfeld Follies
and presented new editions periodically until 1931.

ZÖLD, MÁRTON (1865–?), Austro-Hungarian general. Born
in Hungary, Zöld passed out of the military academy in Budapest
and was seconded to the infantry. In 1914 he commanded
a battalion against Serbia and Montenegro, and was
awarded a Hungarian knighthood for valor on the Russian
front. In the same year he commanded a regiment on the
Italian front. After the establishment of an independent Hungarian
state, Zöld was made a full general. He was active in
Jewish affairs.

Take a quiz Famous JewsLinks to the other sites with information about famous Jews:The 100 Most Influential Jews of All Time
The list from the book The Jewish 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Jews of all Time (Citadel Press Book, 1994), written by Michael Shapiro